In the professional food and automatic service market it is not uncommon that an apparatus for dispensing a food product is supplied for free to a location manager by the provider of the food products. However, this is done under the condition that the machine is only supplied with products of the provider.
Examples of dispensing apparatuses include: Vending machines, Bar Coffee machines, office coffee machines, and the like.
Because the costs of the machine have to be covered through selling of the food products, it is important to the provider that the machine works exclusively with the products he provides.
To get this result, the dispensing apparatus can be equipped with a device that recognizes if a given food package comes from the authorized provider. Such recognition devices are expensive, even compared to the price of the dispensing apparatus, making this option less than satisfactory.